Army to cut nearly 50,000 soldiers over 5 years

[Kolesar]

Bostick to lead effort beginning March 2012

By Jim Tice - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Sep 25, 2011

The Army is preparing to launch in March a five-year, nearly 50,000-soldier drawdown, using a combination of accession cuts and voluntary and involuntary separations, similar to the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, according to Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, service personnel chief.

Bostick, the Army G-1, said the pending drawdown initially will focus on the temporary 22,000-soldier increase launched three years ago to support the Afghanistan troop surge.
...
The second phase of the drawdown involves 27,000 soldier spaces that were added to end strength during the Grow the Army program, leaving the service with 520,400 active-duty soldiers on Sept. 30, 2016.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the service’s new chief of staff, said in early September that the Army probably will be cut beyond the 520,000-soldier level now planned.

...

“We can do this, and we will manage it just as we have done in the past,” said Bostick, who is pending Senate confirmation to become the chief of engineers.

“We feel that with the demand going down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and given the time to conduct a reasonable drawdown, we can manage (the force reduction) just as we have managed drawdowns in the past.”

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/09/army-to-cut-nearly-50000-soldiers-over-5-years-092511/

Personnel costs are the huge expense in the military. This is a reduction of about 10% and is reducing the Army to the size it was before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars' expansion.

I hope that many of them can start drawing a retirement pension for a continuing income. This job market is rough, to say the least.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. If only they had jobs to go to

I don't know what a nation is supposed to do with 3 divisions of unemployed combat veterans but allowing them to languish and slide into poverty is not an option.

[TBF]

4. They will put them to work in the oil fields of North Dakota,

and building the humungous pipeline. Always a way to serve ...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Better unemployed than dead or maimed in a lost war.

[TheWraith]

3. The bulk of our ground forces should be based on a national militia system, like Switzerland.

Everybody thinks that Switzerland doesn't have a military, but that's not true. They actually have a large and effective military, which could in an emergency field 600,000 combat troops. That would be like the US mobilizing a ground force of 25 million people.

The secret? They don't have much of a "full time" army. People come in, they get trained, they're issued a rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition... and they go home. Come in once a year or so to drill and double check their marksmanship skills, and that's it. But in the event of a national emergency, those rifles get pulled off the shelf, and you've got about 600,000 people and 60 million rounds of ammunition mobilized within hours.

And did I mention that Switzerland's national sport is sharpshooting? Yes, seriously.

We need full time special operations troops, for certain, as well as full time Navy and Air Force. But most of the US Army isn't actively doing anything at any given time. And won't be, unless we're fighting big wars. It would take one much bigger than Iraq was, actually, to occupy even most of the current US Army forces.

[Kolesar]

8. Reserves and Guard units are political patronage

There is one in every congressional district. Thus, every congressman can brag about bringing dollars back into the district.

[DrunkenBoat]

5. ...and replace them with contractors.

[msongs]

6. fire the parasite leech contractors and let these soldiers do those jobs nt

[customerserviceguy]

7. Not only will they be back on the job market

They'll have veteran's preferences in many areas, as well. I don't begrudge them that one iota, but it will make the situation of the long term jobless just a bit worse.

I'm not against bringing them home and paying them here for awhile.

[4_TN_TITANS]

9. I've always thought that unemployment at home

is what kept the wars going. With the deficit situation, I guess there's no choice now. Homeless vet is going to take on a whole new meaning.